MICR symbols, characters printed with magnetic ink, are key elements which carry information utilized to process financial documents. There are several advantages of using MICR symbols. In addition to the uniqueness of the character shape for both human and machine readability, prints with magnetic ink are immune to many different types of external interferences of a non-magnetic nature. These external interferences include, for example, signatures on a bank check, extraneous marks, and pictorial backgrounds on a bank check, all of which make character recognition difficult when non-magnetic data capture techniques are used.
There are various methods and techniques, both impact and non-impact, for printing MICR characters. For high speed MICR printing to achieve high thruput and good printing quality for higher read rates, using mixed documents (different sizes and weights as used in financial institutions), the impact technology is the most suitable and successful printing method. However, impact printing technology relying on electro-mechanical devices have limitations. Frequency limitation of the electro-mechanical devices are limiting factors that control the printing speed and thus the thruput rate of high speed MICR printing systems.
A need has thus arisen for a high speed impact hammer that reduces cycle time of the impacting device, thereby increasing operating speed of the impact hammer resulting in a system capable of higher thruput rates.